"
"I'm discharged. After I came out of hospital they gave me sick leave,
and constantly renewed it; and when the armistice came they gave me my
discharge. They put it down to my wound, of course, but--well, I gathered
the impression that I was considered no great loss." He had finished his
pipe, and was now smiling reflectively.
Captain Alec did not smile. Indeed he looked rather pained; he was
remembering General Punnit's story: military inefficiency, even military
imperfection, was for him no smiling matter. Beaumaroy did not appear to
notice his disapproving gravity.
"So I was at a loose end. I had sold up my business in Spain; I was there
six or seven years, just as Captain--Captain--? Oh, Cranster, yes!--was
in Bogota--when I joined up, and had no particular reason for going back
there--and, incidentally, no money to go back with. So I took on this
job, which came to me quite accidentally. I went into a Piccadilly bar
one evening, and found my old man there, rather excited and declaiming a
good deal of rot; seemed to have the war a bit on his brain.
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